Your desire to trap...nature or nurture?

From what I know many of us were exposed to trapping/hunting by our parents, grandparents, uncles etc. And for some of us something clicked and we became hooked. Trapping became a part of us. Others never took to it. (Like my kid).

In my case nobody in my immediate family hunted or trapped. In fact nobody even owned a gun in my family! But something inside my noggin called out to me. I "borrowed" a rusty trap I found hanging in a neighbor's barn and set it on a trail coming out of a canal to a duck pond and caught a nutria. I was 12 or 13. Soon I was devouring the Fur Fish & Games on everything trapping related. Of course it didn't hurt that the local taxidermist/fur buyer started buying those nutria green for $3 each either. The mercenary part of me definitely intrigued by that.

What I wonder about all of this is if there isn't some archaic part of the brain that remembers our hunter/gatherer pasts and calls out for it to be fulfilled once again. There are other parts of my personality that lend credibility to that. Since a very young age I have always had a fascination with preserving and putting up food. Growing/gathering my own food, etc etc.

So for me no "nurture" at all really, except for some high school and college buddies who thought it was pretty cool. But (except for NewHouse 114) nobody as in to it as I.

So for you: Nature or nurture?

I dont know if i have ever analized my feelings or emotions towards hunting and trapping.

I just love the great outdoors .........the West , wide open spaces , mountains and deserts both

Getting away from people while hunting and trapping is an adventure and medicine for the mind

While working in town i find my blood pressure goes up ..............apparently killing people is illegal ....lol .....so to the woods i go

Nature

Nature. Never had a mentor to teach me anything outdoors related besides my involvement in Boy Scouts, but have always had some unexplainable caveman-type urge to hunt/trap/fish, and a desire to get away to the quiet places from time to time.

My dad didn't really hunt, fish, or trap. It was my choice.

Beaverpeeler, my experience was identical to yours. Nature I say.

It's in my blood.

I was told when I was small-3 years old or so I would go off into the bush with the other kids and bring back animals like snakes frogs,etc.Had a catapult since I could remember.
Always spent time in the bush as long as I can remember.Started hunting with a bow and arrows and bb and pellet guns when about 8,shooting birds and squirrels.Started snaring rabbits around the same time. Started hunting with 22 rifle,shotgun at about 12 and same time got traps and started trapping for rats coon,beaver and mink.Moved up north at 15 and started running a trapline for marten fox mink rats ermine beaver,near town,then later at about 20 got to trapping a remote line with a Cree buddy for wolf,lynx,otter as well as the other fur.
My fathers family lived partly off the land when young as necessity but he never hunted or trapped when I was growing up.But I always went out shooting my fathers handguns with him when I was a kid.I already knew gun safety and how to shoot when he bought me my first rifle and first shotgun at 12.
Always went fishing with my Dad ever since I could remember.

I grew up hunting and fishing. Spent every day possible outdoors. My first intro to trapping cane from my best friend. They were a lot “richer” than we were and his Dad had bought him a dozen Victors 1.5’s I believe. We sorta learned together. That back when green coons were $15-18, fox brought in $20-30 and a bobcat was the Holy Grail at $45-60. Now these were all green. We’d run the lines before school on a Motorcycle his parents bought him. I’d run it on my cycle with no motor if he was sick or couldn’t go. While it was fun, it didn’t last once we got 16 and got our drivers license.
Now fast forward 35 years and I was told I needed a new hobby to add to my already not enough time in the day list. The manager at a plantation I probably spend way to much time at, voluntold me congrats, I was the new trapper. I guess it was the challenge that helped me get back started. Now it’s almost like an addiction. I know I need sleep and spend time doing other things, but something keeps driving me to wake up way too early every morning and then keeps me awake at night. I’m constantly thinking of different locations and sets. I’ve always loved the outdoors, just more so the older I get.

Against the wishes of several folks my brothers and I just decided we needed to hunt and trap. Pops didn't have a problem with it, he hunted before he was married but that ended with kids. But we've all been addicted to it since then. It's in our gene's I think. So I'm going with Nature.

My dad died when I was young, there were traps in the basement so I set a few behind the house in the creek. Got a few rats and mink. Never really got in to trapping. Did a lot of small game hunting. After I got out of the Army I got married and had two children.
Some how I got into falconry. Falconry takes up a great deal of your off time. I practiced falconry for almost 50 years. The snow got to deep in the winter and I am getting older. So about 4 years ago I stop flying birds. When I retired I got tired of sitting around and started trapping Nuisance Animals just to kill time. But in my area most people just shot anything they did not like. But no one knew how to trap moles, So now I am Everet the Mole Guy. Nice second income, set my own work schedule etc. I was just the way it turned out.

Nurture. First exposure to trapping was at Colo. State with Major Boddiker. Hooked after that. Moved to Alaska in 78 to be a wilderness trapper........and I was for several years.
mt

I have to say nature. I grew up with guns and my dad took a deer if it wandered into our ravine but it’s not something anyone has taught me. I’m 32 now and my husband(46) did his first deer hunt this year(I’ll be joining next year) and landed a couple (plus a salvage)and so I got to skin and gut them(I wanted to) and tanned my first hides(I’m hooked). This brought on the need to get more hides and the next step for me was trapping/hunting furbearers. I’ve only trapped one so far but It was awesome and can’t wait for more. Hoping to go on my first coyote hunt next week.
We both grew up outdoors and we have 4 kids and they Love being outdoors and collecting anything cool they find. Our oldest 2, 11 & 8 both went hunting for the first time this year and loved it. And out 3 year old “can’t wait to grow up and get her own gun and shoot a buck” as she says. Lol. I’m sure they will start trapping with me next year.

it is just part of me i have been hunting and fishing for 50 years and i still do some but i live for trapping so it is my nature

I have always loved being outdoors and learning about nature. No better way to learn than to participate.

No one in my home were hunters or trappers. My grandfather and uncle on my mother’s side were both avid hunters. When I was 12, it seemed like something I’d like to do.

Fifty years later, I’m hunting and trapping everyday.

My father had always been an outdoors man and the tales of mountain men always caught my attention. After we got FFG I wanted to trap. So after retiring from the Army I got some traps and headed out. My father now traps too. I guess there was nurture to it but it was mostly my own doing.

I started trapping when I was in the fifth grade because I liked animals and wanted to see em up close.

Nature for me. I was a city kid, no one in my immediate family hunted or fished. First gun in the house was a Red Rider BB gun I begged my parents to let me buy around age 12. I subscribed to Outdoor Life magazine always wanted to hunt just didn’t have much opportunity. Didn’t start hunting until I was 22 and started trapping shortly after.

Both Nature and Nurture for me. I was lucky to have a Dad who loved to hunt and fish. He picked it up on his own, however, as there was no one to teach him. He included me in his pursuits as soon as I was able to tag along. Consumptive outdoor activities have been part of my identity for as long as i can remember. I'm grateful to have had a Dad who gave me a head start.

"He was born to it." I overheard my father telling that to a friend of his. I guess he was right.

Nature.
Needed to get rid of some varmints many decades ago, found I enjoy the chess game.
Been trapping off and on ever since.

I am nurtured by nature so it works well for me. No trappers in my family before or now and in the future from what I can see. I credit FFG while in HS as the magazine that got me interested in trapping. The Jim Kjelgarrd (spelling) books gave me a love of the outdoors.

Bryce

I would say a combination of both. No one in my family trapped when I started trapping, but my uncle and my grandfather had in the past. But, it was nurture in that I was basically raised in the outdoors. My family took me camping from the time I was an infant... real camping, in a tent. All of the men in the family hunted, and all the women fished. So being outside was ingrained in my from the time I was born.

But when i found those old Victor traps hanging in a shed and asked my grandfather what they were and he told me and showed me how to set them... it was all over. I became consumed by trapping in a way i never had with hunting or fishing. I eat, slept and breathed trapping. My family would tell me, "Would you shut up about trapping already?" LOL. So, I think there's definitely some nature in there too.

I read my Jim Kjelgaard books until they were falling apart, LOL. I still have all of them to this day. My favorite was Haunt Fox.

Nature I ques being the desire for spending money when a teenager.

[/quote] But when i found those old Victor traps hanging in a shed and asked my grandfather what they were and he told me and showed me how to set them... it was all over. I became consumed by trapping in a way i never had with hunting or fishing. I eat, slept and breathed trapping. My family would tell me, "Would you shut up about trapping already?" LOL. So, I think there's definitely some nature in there too.[/quote]

.This is awesome! Wish it had happened to me. Lol.
thank

True hunters/trappers, who do it to eat or for some extra money are a rare breed. They are born to it. Dragging a random kid into the wild will not create a hunter or a trapper. They have to have it in them already.
I do it because it is the only way that I can escape from stress which the rest of humanity causes me. When I get there, I am in "Carl World", whereas, while I am there, nothing else matters.

My poor kid from a very young age got dragged along on my boat line in all sorts of nasty western Oregon weather.... day after day. From early morning 'til dark. For him the buzz of seeing the first few catches wore thin by the end of the day. He's 25 now and doesn't have any interest at all in hunting or trapping.

If my dad had been taking me out trapping as a youngster I think I would have felt I was in heaven. So obviously the calling can skip generations. LOL

Probably both. Dad took me with him at a very young age and it stuck. If it wasn't for the nature, I'd never have stuck with it as a full time job for the past 28 years, now going on 29.

Early pic of dad and me. It was probably taken around 1950 or thereabouts.

You're quite a bit older than me and I hope you've got somebody trained on how to make your lures in case you kick off. If you need any help mixing that Skunky Backbreaker, you let me know.

Paul, looks like you and those mink would all would fit in the basket.

I would say nurture more than nature. Grew up in hunting and trapping with my Father until high school where my brother and I were consumed with basketball. Being 6’6” and 6’8” we spent a lot of time on the hardwoods. After college and grad school I was able to get back home and start trapping with Dad again. It has been our love for trapping and the outdoors that make up my best memories.

Dad doesn’t get outside very often anymore so I’m over by Mom and Dads house often relaying what I’ve seen while setting, where traps are located and then show what “we” have caught. I think there is still a big drive to please my Dad even at my age of 51.

Dave

In my case, a little of both. As a kid growing up on a farm some 50 to 60 years ago, I was taught by my dad to hunt and fish......and I coon hunted with dogs with neighbors, but virtually no trapping, even though nearly every farm had a few long springs hanging on a wall in the barn. Back then, in that part of the world, traps were tools to keep varmints preying on farm livestock at bay. No different than a shovel, a hoe or a gun. But very few of those traps ever got used.

A nearby neighbor was my adoptive grandfather, and he came and got me one day and said he was going to teach me to trap coyotes. They raised sheep and he wanted help keeping coyotes at bay to protect the newborn lambs. What he taught me then I now recognize as a hay set. But I never saw much success and when he and the sheep were gone, so was I. We still shot coyotes on sight, but mostly left them for the buzzards. Then it was a home in town for nearly 40 years and trapping never crossed my mind.

Now that I'm back out in the country, I once again have livestock and am surrounded by varmints.......so trapping is very much back in the picture.....but mostly as a form of ADC. Some trap types and animals I have experience with, others'....traps and animals, I'm learning.....and having fun doing it.

But as for trappers and trapping, in the world of sportsman and outdoorsman, I've always thought of trappers as being on a higher plain than the rest of us. To be successful, their understanding of animals and their behavior has to be far above what the average person would have. I think part of it is learned and part of it is instinct. I marvel at the guys when driving down the road can spot a deer, a coyote, etc.......they see what others can't, even when you point it out to them. So yes, I think you can learn a lot, but it helps if you were born with a knack.

I would say nature. My dad took me hunting and fishing but never trapped. I am a self taught trapper that really enjoys the outdoors. So not being a real good instructor I am still learning after 40 plus years of trapping. Now my dad in his 70's is the 1st to get up and check sets. I always set a few for him to look at, it keeps him going.